A Picture of Desire
by Oldwickedsongs
Summary: An offering to Desire in two protraits. RR


Author's Note: A character sketch of Desire. Rated T for smut, implied or otherwise. For this, you have my humble apologies. R/R

Disclaimer: "If we shadows have offended, think but this and all is mended,

That you did but slumber'd here while these visions did appear.

And this weak and idle theme is no more yielding then a dream."

-Midsummer's Night Dream

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**A Picture of Desire **

**By: Lady Erised**

Picture a smoked-filled club, and glasses holding stale alcohol and soaked cigarette butts. All the patrons gathered around the small stage, their little shrine, and watch it with rapt attention; the priests and patrons of this temple wear the same garb, some in jeans and shirts, some in business suits, some in skirts. They are all watching the One. The only one that has mattered, the only thing does.

She is Sun and Moon. She is Life and Death, Breath, and Air. She is Goddess and God. She is divine. They watch her. They love her with her eyes. They pray to her with mute tongues or fickle, stumbled whoops. They beg her to heed them. They demand she love them.

She dances.

She's a small girl, an attractive thing that clings to the brass pole as if is lover, life and earth. She curls a strong thigh, curls a knee about the pole as she throws herself about on it. Making love, eyes closed, music pumping, feeding the adoration her devotees offer her. She throws her hair back, and it crashes against the smooth curve of her back, trailing down to dimpled cheeks, and a tattooed name of someone named Oscar that she knew a long time ago.

She turns, eyes meeting the devotees and smiling. She smiles because she hates them as much as they love. She dances to hide, to live, to remember when she was young, free and unmarred. Before Oscar and the pole and the temple. She pushes her tongue between her teeth, brushing them across red-painted lips and adding a purr they cannot hear over the din of Brick House.

She sees love in the eyes of them, her slaves.

And for one small brief moment, she believes it too.

This is Desire's domain.

Picture a small, unimportant hill. An elderly vicar who beams as he reads from his old age-beaten tome, glancing up to the young couple before him who laugh nervously and cry in the sunlight because they are so happy. The girl wears lace and white as looks like winter and happiness combined. Her hair curls like the movie star he always says she looks like, even the morning when she thinks she's ugly. She keeps staring at the crowd, at her beloved and the vicar unsure this is real. She wants it so much it makes her stomach ache. She wants it so much, wants him so much she cries from the pain, the lust.

He's prefect. He smiles like movie stars, and glitters. He claps his hand over hers as he recites what the vicar tells him to. He laughs and mumbles the words, and blushes because he's happy too. He promises to love, and honor and obey. He promises to cherish, and to provide.

But he wants to tell her.

He wants to tell her about the taste that rings in his mouth that turns his words to ash. He wants to tell her about the warmth he feels when he is so completely enfolded that he has lost of sense of self. He wants to tell her that the strong man she loves, the one who has the bright future; the Republican prince who'll looks like the best of Bobbie and Jack and be President one day loves his best man.

And more importantly, he loves him back.

When he's told to place the ring on her finger he hesitates. He looks up and sees her and smiles. He closes his eyes and leans in to kiss his beloved.

And all he sees is his lover's dark eyes, cheeky smile and muscled arms forcing him to his knees…

This is Desire's domain.

And…

Just because he-she can…

Desire will give the Dancer a secret virus; carried by men, suffered by women. The darkness will peel up from the stomach and eat slowly away at the woman's brain till she doesn't remember her name or Oscar or her temple. It will peel back her beauty, eat muscle and skin and shiver it up. Pinked skin, and curves will become shapeless gray till she's given over to the youngest of the Endless.

And…

Just because he-she can…

Desire lets the secret love affair continue. He-she keeps the affair, the delicate matter between the sheets, between hotel rooms and calls on cell phones. He-she even let the wife know, accept, hide and even join in when she's bored or horny or both. Desire lets them continue in anonymity; lets them dream of each other because she knows it pisses her elder brother off. They live together, and smile for the camera. They shake hands with preachers, and Senators, and kiss babies and each other. They touch lips to lips and keep it all a secret, and soon the Groom is running for Vice President. Soon, the married couple think, soon they'll be happy and rich, and in power. The new Camelot, they think and smile, complete with Jack, Jackie, and Marilyn.

Then the Lover changes the rules. He too has dreamed and lusted for this moment. He takes the photos, and phone calls, and toys they all loved and displays them all for the camera to see. He puts them upon the altar of press and crucifies the Groom. He destroys them all for the money the reporters pour on him like rain. It makes it worth it. The years of hell between him and her; it's all worth it.

Why, you ask, because he can.

Picture now your scene. Quiet and clean cut, or wild and steamy. Look around and view your temple where you are goddess or god or offering. See the offering, or the statues and look around and know this is yours. All yours. Was now, will forever be. You stand there, and know beyond it all that all you can have is there. All you want is yours. Always has been. So go ahead, Desire won't mind.

Want.

Possess.

Lust.

Demand.

Beg.

Bay.

Plead.

Pray.

Desire.

You will.

You already have.


End file.
